Events

Climate Week: "Improving Agriculture in a Warmer World" with David Lobell

The Harvard University Center for the Environment presents: "Improving Agriculture in a Warmer World" with David Lobell, William Wrigley Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment; Associate Professor of Earth System Science; Deputy Director, Center on Food Security and the Environment, Stanford University, as part of The Future of Food: Climate, Crops, and Consequences Lecture Series.

David Lobell is an Associate Professor in Earth System Science, Deputy Director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment, and William Wrigley Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. His research focuses on identifying opportunities to raise crop yields in major agricultural regions, with a particular emphasis on adaptation to climate change. His current projects span Africa, South Asia, Mexico, and the United States, and involve a range of tools including remote sensing, GIS, and crop and climate models.

Lobell's work is motivated by questions such as: What investments are most effective at raising global crop yields, in order to increase food production without expansion of agricultural lands? Will yield gains be able to keep pace with global demand for crop products, given current levels of investment? And what direct or indirect effects will efforts to raise crop productivity have on other components of the Earth System, such as climate? Answering these requires an understanding of the complex factors that limit crop yields throughout the world, and the links between agriculture and the broader Earth System.

The Future of Food: Climate, Crops, and Consequences Lecture Series highlights the interactions between agriculture and climate and their consequences for health and stability in an ongoing series of discussions with speakers from government, academia, and industry. Learn more about the series and full schedule of speakers.